Bailing
by Therm
Summary: A snippet of Daryl's life just as the world goes to hell. One shot. Pre-ZA.


**Title:** Bailing  
**Summary**: A snippet of Daryl's life just before the world goes to hell.  
**Notes:** Written for a competition that seemed to vanish without a trace. this was my entry.

* * *

This shit had to stop.

Working dead end jobs just to stay afloat wasn't what he wanted. Every time he tried to get it together though, tried to do what he wanted, hurricane Merle blew in and caused havoc.

Most recently, it was finding the money Daryl had been saving taped to the wall behind the radiator and blowing it on coke. It was always Merle. Paying his bail, someone he owed money too. Daryl couldn't even get enough saved up to fix the leak in the roof.  
Well, he did have enough to do that but he'd decided to stop wasting money in fixing up what was always going to be a shit hole. He wanted that clean break. Save up enough and head out somewhere close enough that if Merle _really_ needed him, he could get there.

Because Merle's problem wasn't that he _needed_ Daryl, he'd just got _used_ to Daryl bailing him out.

"Sorted," he said.

Edna Chambers had lived here all her life. The kindly neighbour from his childhood who'd look at him with kind eyes and concern when she saw him sporting more bruises than a boy his age should have. He remembered a time his no good father had shut him out during a nasty storm and she'd opened her door to him, let him warm up, made him some warm milk and given him cookies. The Dixon's moved a while later to a trailer because they couldn't afford the house no more. Wasn't that the house was all that expensive, was never a nice house, but between his useless parents and having Merle and Daryl to raise, they had to let something go. So it was the house.

But Daryl remembered Edna well. Her and her husband, Jack, he had a debt to pay them.

Because of them he aspired to be, maybe not better, but at least different to Merle.  
Opening that door to him all those years ago, it had meant something. In a world where nobody ever seemed to have time for him, to even give the slightest shit about what he felt or said, they did.

"Thank you, Daryl," Edna said.

No matter what they needed, Daryl always did his best to help them out. Paying that debt back piece by piece. He nodded at her, "Mind if I use the bathroom before I go?"

"You know where it is," she replied, smiling.

Daryl headed up the stairs and went to the bathroom. He wasn't planning on going home from here. Needed to stock up on some grub first. Especially if Merle had been by and cleared him out again. It wasn't until he left the bathroom that he heard the scratching at the door. His brow creased into a frown for a moment but then the handle started to jiggle slightly.

Then he remembered Jack.  
Because when he'd got here he hadn't seen the old man. Edna told him Jack hadn't been well today and he was resting in bed. Didn't think she'd said what was wrong but it didn't matter much.

That was when he heard a soft moan and he realised. Scratching, struggling at the door, moaning. Christ, Jack was in some kind of trouble and he yelled out for Edna as he rushed towards the door, careful to open it and not hurt the man he imagined laying just beyond.

That was what threw him most as he opened the door, eyes down ready to help the older man up, the fact that a pair of feet were there and when he looked up, he wasn't sure exactly what he was looking at. It was Jack, no question but he didn't quite look like Jack. He looked like he had cataracts in both eyes and Jack looked at Daryl with no recognition, mouth hung open in a slack jaw kinda way.

Then he moved, towards Daryl in strange lurching steps, reaching and grabbing for him and even though Daryl talked to him, told him it was Daryl and that he would help him, Jack didn't stop. When Jack reached him, he grabbed tight and urgently, fingers clawing at Daryl's skin, fingers dug in deep.

"What's wrong?" Edna asked, coming up the stairs.

He grunted with the effort of keeping the man at bay. Jack wasn't some frail old thing. He was in his seventies but he was tall and had a large build, even now and it seemed insane but he was certain Jack was trying to bite him.  
As they struggled, Daryl was able to side step Jack. He wasn't sure what happened, whether he pushed Jack, tripped him or what, but Jack crashed down the stairs and Daryl heard every painful knock on the man's body, not frail but still old.

And he knew he was fucked. As he descended the stairs and looked down, he saw Edna as she was kneeling next to Jack, a pool of blood from a wound in his head. He didn't know what he'd done other than that he'd killed him.

And Edna knew it too.

"He's... dead. You..." Nothing else seemed to come out as she looked at him in stunned silence for a moment, looked at the blood and then back up to him. And then she raised her hand in terror to her mouth like she might scream as though she were in some classic horror, but no sound came out but she got up and ran.

The horror of what he'd done overwhelmed him as he descended the stairs.  
Then the floating words of a one sided conversation

"... police, my husbands been murdered and the man who did it is in my house..."

Blind panic took over and he ran straight out. They'd never believe that a Dixon didn't do this on purpose. Robbery, whatever.  
He headed to the only person who wouldn't turn him away right now.

He headed to Merle.


End file.
